Lily Potter
by greenluva89
Summary: This is Lily's fourth year at Hogwarts. With her best friend away all summer, she was stuck in Grimmauld Place with her brothers. But now she is back at Hogwarts she is in for a big year. rated K to T
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Lily shook her head and sighed. Why couldn't she have two, perfectly normal brothers? James, who was constantly in detention and spent the rest of his time being a jerk, and Albus, being a nerd as usual with his head always stuck in a book. It's not as if she didn't love her brothers. They could be really – well – brotherly sometimes, but most of the time she just wished that they would act normal. She wasn't asking for them to give her heaps of attention, or to ask her if she had slept well every morning, but a little normality would be nice.

This was Lily's fourth year at Hogwarts. With James starting the year with a detention already, and Albus, the prefect, who was practically lined up for Head Boy next year, she almost wished she had come first, then, at least, she would not have to live up to Albus's standards and also to try not to get in trouble, as her parents had it hard enough with James. Her best friend, Kate, had gone to Italy over the summer holidays and Lily's were spiked with jealousy as she read Kate's letters, which were always full of sunshine, happiness and bronzed boys, while stuck in Grimmauld Place with her brothers.

"Lily!"

"Kate!" Lily shrieked in reply as she was almost bowled over by her friend, as she was enveloped into a hug.

"It's so good to see you! I could barley wait any longer!" Kate's excitement was evident, as was her browner than usual skin, proof of a very sunny holiday. As the girls caught up on the fragments of gossip that had been forgotten in their letters they found an empty compartment and hauled their luggage in before sitting down and continuing to chat about their holidays.

"So, how was Italy?" Lily queried, relishing in Kate's talk about everything Italy, especially the boy factor.

"It was the best! Mum and Dad even started talking about going back there next year."

"Oh." Lily was not looking forward to another lonely summer at Grimmauld Place next year as well.

"You know, they did say I was welcome to invite you next time around, there's no way that I would leave you stuck with those brothers of yours again." Kate cheered Lily up significantly by this. "Although I probably wouldn't mind being around them all summer." Lily laughed. She had known for a while now that Kate liked the look of her brothers, especially James.

The ride to Hogwarts went by quickly. Soon, they were all tumbling out onto the platform at Hogsmeade and heading up to the castle in the seemingly horseless carriages for the sorting of the first years and the welcoming feast.

As per usual, the house elves had outdone themselves in the magnificent feast that appeared on golden dishes on the house tables. Lily and Kate both piled up their plates with food as they continued to talk about everything and anything. The cauldron cakes off the food trolley had seemed like a very long time ago.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Lily woke to sunlight streaming in her eyes and her owl, Tonks, tapping at the window with a letter. Someone had pulled the curtains back from around her four-poster which was just in the right spot for all the light to spill onto her face. Seeing as Kate's bed was vacated and already nicely made, Lily assumed she was already down in the Great Hall making a start on breakfast. Lily opened her window to let Tonks in and discovered that it was a short note from Kate:

_Hurry up and get down here._

"Gosh Kate, I didn't need to wake up _that_ early." Lily said grumpily when she found Kate tucking into her breakfast in the Great Hall. She knew Kate had an incurable habit of waking early, but she didn't appreciate her sleep being disrupted.

"Well sorry I didn't leave you sleeping so that you could be late for double potions this morning, we don't need more excuses for Spike to take more points off Gryffindor this year, he was bad enough last." Kate stated bluntly.

"Yeah, he seems almost as bad as Snape apparently was to my dad when he was at school." Lily recalled from something her dad commented on a while back when she had mentioned the grudges Spike seemed to hold against all Gryffindors on pure principle and was always unjustly taking points off them.

"I didn't know there was a teacher that could be worse than Spike." "I thought he was like, your dad's friend or something."

"Yeah, well apparently he turned out to be a goody-good after all the evilness." Lily stated. "It doesn't really matter anyway." Lily was not going to go through all the amazing events about her dad's life to have people like her because of what he did. She liked being known because of her, not her dad. There were enough books about him anyway, if they wanted to find out. Her father, Harry, had told her pretty much everything that had gone on, including the famous Battle of Hogwarts when she had been old enough to understand it all. "Let's just get to class." Lily was glad that they could continue abusing Spike and get rid of the topic of her dad.

"Hello Lily!" Rose came and sat down next to Lily whilst she was in the middle of tucking into her roast potato.

"Hi, Rose, how are you?" Lily was surprised that Albus was not with her, the two were usually joined at the hip.

"Good, good." "You?" Rose repeated the pleasantries.

"Yes, I'm fine." "Where's Albus?" Lily inquired.

"Oh, he's just being a jerk." Lily was surprised. Albus and Rose were always together and usually inseparable. The two of them had been best friends since the day Lily's mother and her Aunt Hermione had introduced them to each other, which was pretty much around the time they were born.

"Why?" Kate piped up. She was a sucker for gossip, and had known Rose for around about the same time as she had known Lily.

"Oh, he just _forgets_ to tell me things." "Not that it matters anyway." To Lily, it looked like it did matter to Rose. Probably some stupid prefect duty or something. Rose was a prefect, as well as Albus and she seemed to have inherited the goody-good manner of her mother, Lily's Aunt Hermione, when she was at school.

**A/N: Sorry I haven't written a chapter for a few days, but I had to finish my exams first! Also, Apologies about the short chapters. I'm not very good at lengthy things so I thought I'd write a bit every few days if I can. You might have to wait a bit for the next one as I'm going away for a few days and cannot take the computer! Thanks to **_**JaneSkye**_** with her lovely review and all the others who have bothered to read the last chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Lily walked back to the common room with Kate. She had thought about mentioning Rose's attitude to Kate, but ended up deciding not to. It wasn't really her business anyway, but Kate seemed to have other ideas.

"Do you know what was up with Rose?" She inquired. "I mean, she and Albus are usually stuck to each other."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." "They probably just had a fight over a prefect duty or something." Lily voiced her earlier thoughts, even though she didn't really believe in them. Rose and Albus were not split that easily. She would probably talk to Rose later about it.

"True." "You're probably right." Kate sighed. "I wish I knew what was bothering them. Albus doesn't look nearly as handsome when he's worried."

"Oh Kate, when will you stop fancying my brothers!" Lily exclaimed. "I know you like them, but you wouldn't be able to stand them if you got married!"

"Who said anything about marriage?" Kate said wondrously. "Just because they're handsome, cute and very, very hot doesn't mean I have to marry them!"

"Oh, but you would if you could!"

"Umm….maybe….." Kate had a cheeky grin on her face. "I'm sure that there are many girls out there who would!" Lily silently agreed to this. She knew that many girls had tried, most failing to get her brothers' attentions.

"_Alice_" Lily said, and climbed through the portrait hole, Kate following her.

"I didn't know that they'd changed the password." Kate said.

"Oh, Rose mentioned it this morning. Didn't you hear her?"

"Probably not." "Anyway, let's get a start on that essay of Spike's"

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." Lily replied. They therefore spent the whole evening finishing the essay. Lily woke up feeling extremely tired, and guessed Kate must have been just as exhausted because when she looked over at Kate's bed, it was not neatly made as it usually was, but the curtains were drawn shut and Lily could hear little snores emitting from behind the soft, silky red fabric.

"Oh, Kate, why didn't you wake me up earlier?" Kate groaned as she got out of bed and started hurriedly dressing.

"Seriously, we still have twenty minutes left of breakfast." "You have nothing to worry about." Lily went about packing Kate's school bag in an effort to get to breakfast quicker. Not that she was really bothered, but they had double potions first and Spike would be counting the seconds.

They collected their essays from the table in the common room and headed down to breakfast, managing to eat a few bits of toast before Tonks flew down and landed beside Lily, probably hoping for a few bread crumbs, Lily thought, until she happened to notice the letter attached to her leg. She unrolled it and read:

_Dear Lily,_

_Hope school's going great and that you are having a good time!_

_Say hello to Kate for us and we will be hoping to see you in the Easter holidays (as we are guessing you probably want to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas with everything that is happening!)_

_Lots of Love,_

_Mum and Dad_

"I wonder what that is all about?" Lily asked Kate, who had just got a similar letter from her parents.

"Dunno….It's kinda odd, don't you think?" "I mean, like, we always go home for Christmas, I've never stayed here before."

"Me too." "It seems like something's up. And our parents know." Lily pondered. "I don't know why they couldn't just have told us."

"Yeah." "Talk about keeping us in suspense." Kate said as they got up from the table and headed for the dungeons, in which one of them they had Potions. Stupid place to have a class, Lily thought, although not for the first time. All damp, dark and gloomy. Which, she contemplated, probably suits the subject well. Lily and Kate had never really liked Potions. Nor had they ever actually been any good at it, anyway. Nobody in their class could wait to ditch it in a few years.

"I suppose we'll hear about it from Sprout or Longbottom later on, probably closer to the time." Lily suggested, and then fell quiet when Spike entered the room.

**A/N: Sorry this has taken so long for me to put up! I have been quite lazy and taken a few days extra to finish this as I had a bit of writers' block. I'm on a roll now (I hope) and the next one should be up in the usual next few days (if possible). I hope you enjoyed this, please review, I love reviews (as any good writer should) and I don't mind "constructive criticism" as they call it, all it does is help! **


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Later that evening, Lily and Kate were discussing Quidditch while tucking into yet another magnificent dinner provided by the house elves. You could pretty much just call it a feast with everything that was available.

"Do you know why nobody has organised Quidditch tryouts yet? Kate wondered.

"I've been curious myself." Lily replied. She had been on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a chaser alongside Kate for the last two years, and wasn't planning on changing that.

"Yeah, well-" Kate cut off as Professor Sprout had stood up and the rest of the occupants of the Great Hall had gone quiet. This was unusual as Sprout only usually made speeches at the Welcoming and Leaving feasts.

"I would like to announce, that this year at Hogwarts, we will be hosting the Triwizard tournament. Now, for those who don't know, the Triwizard tournament is a tournament between the three prominent wizarding schools; Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and of course, Hogwarts itself. From each school a champion will be chosen who will compete in three tasks. For your own safety, the age restriction of seventeen that has been in place for the past few decades will remain in place, as the tasks are dangerous and will probably require magic that only senior students will be up to performing. Both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons will be bringing those of seventeen and older that wish to participate in the tournament later in October."

A wave of chatter passed through the Great Hall, some were so excited that they were pretty much shouting.

"Ha!" Lily exclaimed. "James doesn't turn seventeen until after November!"

"He's not going to be too happy!" Kate replied. "I suppose your parents will be pleased though."

"Yeah, I guess." "I'm glad he won't be old enough. He's cocky enough anyway, he doesn't need _more_ attention." Lily said.

"Oh yeah, and _you_ can talk." Kate said. "You practically have all the guys following you around the castle these days."

Lily blushed. She knew that there were quite a few guys who seemed attracted to her, but none of them had really turned her head. Lily had a track record with boys for refusals and wasn't really asked out much anymore as most guys didn't want to embarrass themselves.

"Although, he and anybody else that are too young will probably complain that the age limit's unfair." Lily reasoned, changing back to Kate's favourite topic, James.

"Why?" Kate questioned. "I mean, that age limit has been in place since our parents were at school."

"Yeah, but my dad did it when he was our age because some mad Death Eater put his name forward for it."

"Seriously?" Kate said with wonder.

"Yeah. Mum kinda tells us not to spread that stuff around." "Most people know, anyway. It's just the generation below him that don't really know much of his past. It's all old hat for everyone else." Kate seemed amazed, but Lily wasn't bothered. This is how everyone reacted when they heard something about her father, but she didn't really give a toss. Her father had told her most of the stories about the 'adventures' he had been involved in when he was younger when Lily and her brothers were younger.

**A/N: For those whom I was not clear enough for, and did not really understand my blabbering, the tournament has taken place every 7-10 years after the battle of Hogwarts and has worked out very well, with not one death in around 30 years (Cedric). **


End file.
